Production Assistants, Seeing Work Dwindle, View a Union as Their Future

Yahoo

02-05-2025

On a scale of 'highly valued' to 'thankless,' the roles that production assistants play on film and television sets can swing towards the latter. Delivering lunch, escorting cast members, managing background actors, maintaining radio equipment — it's all in production assistants' repertoires, with the general expectation being that, as entry-level workers in a cutthroat creative industry, they are eager to please as they work lengthy hours for around minimum wage.
But one group believes longstanding norms around these roles can and should change. For a bit less than a year, Production Assistants United has been taking steps to unionize these workers nationwide with the backing of Burbank-based LiUNA Local 724, which represents electricians, plumbers and carpenters on Hollywood productions. Organizers are aiming to increase wages, enshrine turnaround times and provide access to union health benefits — in other words, to give these workers some of the same benefits as their union colleagues on set.
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It's a bold move at a time when U.S. production is lagging and set jobs are harder to come by than they were during the Peak TV boom times. Union organizing always involves a level of risk, which early-career workers might be less eager to undertake when times are tough. That hasn't deterred Production Assistants United and LiUNA Local 724, which are pushing ahead and making a bid for further visibility with a rally on Sunday at IATSE Local 80's Burbank headquarters.
Clio Byrne-Gudding, one of the group's L.A.-based organizers, says they want Sunday's event to send the message that 'this isn't just an ambitious and kind of underdog movement, but is actually legitimate. It's real.' Echoes Alex Aguilar, LiUNA Local 724's business manager, 'We're here and we're not going away.'
Still, the effort faces an upward climb. Starting as a grassroots group spurred to action by the 2023 writers' and actors strikes, the next year Production Assistants United set out publicly to unionize all types of production assistants, assistants and production secretaries for narrative film and television across the U.S., a group they currently estimate numbers more than 10,000 people.
Their bid to represent this sprawling group only got more difficult once it became clear over the course of 2024 and into 2025 that production wasn't going to be roaring back in the U.S. post-strikes. According to the latest report from L.A.'s film office, production days on location decreased more than 22 percent in the first quarter of 2025 compared with an already meek period in 2024.
'This is definitely the biggest challenge I've ever faced,' admits Aguilar, who says that effort has received backing from Local 724's Washington, D.C.-based umbrella union, which has devoted financial, organizational, training and education resources. 'But I'm up for it. And I think so is our organizing committee.'
So far organizers have broken up their undertaking by region, with an early focus on the film hubs of Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago and Atlanta, including their surrounding areas, as well as Texas. They debuted union authorization cards — which labor groups use to demonstrate the level of support they enjoy within a particular workforce — in February. The group plans to target studios in the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers individually once they decide they have majority support amongst that company's production assistants.
That's been a moving target. Production assistants' top issues, in this particular political climate, have shifted from higher pay to having reliable work, says L.A.-based organizer Nalani Rodgers.
The state of the business has also complicated matters. Sometimes when organizers make cold calls to production assistants, their effort is received like a service organization, says Byrne-Gudding. 'They're like, 'Oh, it's so great what you guys are doing,' when in fact the only way that this is going to happen is if they take action,' they say. 'Which is kind of a difficult thing to communicate to someone because times are so hopeless right now.'
During this period of industry pessimism, the group has placed an emphasis on emboldening production assistants and teaching them more about labor organizing. As they're calling workers and visiting them on sets prior to call times, they're trying to instill the idea of 'these productions cannot be run without you,' says L.A.-based organizer Ethan Ravens.
The group also made fiery speeches at Sen. Bernie Sanders' and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's 'Fighting Oligarchy' tour stop in Los Angeles on April 12, portraying production assistants as essential but downtrodden workers for some of the U.S.' biggest corporate players, including Apple and Amazon. 'We're organizing not just to fix one job but to transform the entire industry for future generations of workers,' Ravens said in his speech.
Sunday's rally will likely tap into some of the same themes — of channeling the leverage that production assistants have on sets and building a brighter future for Hollywood workers — while also demonstrating that the movement has the support of other Hollywood labor organizations. So far, Teamsters Local 399 leader Lindsay Dougherty, Writers Guild of America West board member Adam Conover and SAG-AFTRA secretary-treasurer Joely Fisher have been announced as speakers.
Will production assistants embrace the call to start making moves at such a challenging moment? The answer will become clearer over the next few months, with attendance at Sunday's event in L.A., and at satellite events in Chicago and New York City, serving as a key bellwether. Says Aguilar, 'It's never the perfect time to organize. You just have to organize.'
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